Soldier of Fortune: Gideon Quinn Adventures Book One

Chapter 16

As Gideon stalked off to the bathroom, Jinna turned to Mia. "Where," she said, "did you dig that one up?"

Mia turned her gaze from Gideon's retreating back to her friend's disapproving face. "He was supposed to be a mark," she admitted. "But things got twisty."

"He was a mark?" Disapproval gave way to amazement. "And how much of your fagin's booze did you down when you marked him?"

Which seemed to Mia to be an overreaction. "It was the fagin's call," she said. "And I know Gideon don't look like much—"

"I'll tell you what he looks like," Jinna cut in darkly. "He looks like trouble."

"He's a bit ragged, yeah, but—"

"I could give a comb for his looks, he's trouble because he's a convict."

"Shocking! Specially as I'm such an upright citizen," Mia said with a grin, then looked in the direction Gideon had gone. "Anyway, how d'you know he's been in the nick?"

"I know because I have eyes. Didn't you see the back of his hand? The right one?"

"His hand?" Mia squinted her eyes as she tried to picture either of Gideon's hands, but all she could picture were the map of scars over his torso, the scary shade of blue his lips had been before she and Elvis got him breathing again, and the way his eyes could sometimes seem hollow, as if only a part of a person were still living in that battered body. His hand, not so much. "What about it?"

"Keepers, Mia, he's got the Morton Barrens ident tattooed on the back of it," Jinna let out an exasperated huff. "I don't know how you could have missed the thing."

Well, first the man was drowning, and then he was attacked by some female with a gun, and then we were running, so maybe I missed a wee detail, Mia thought. "It's complicated," she said.

Jinna's eyebrows rose. "It'd have to be."

"Still, comin' out of Morton, he must be more badass than he looks," Mia surmised, impressed.

"That would be how you'd see it," Jinna sighed and, seeming to remember the teapot in her hand, started to pour out. "He's lucky he was with you. If that man had come in here on his own, I'd have been greeting him with the toasting fork."

Mia started to laugh, but Jinna seemed to be serious. "Does being pregnant make a person into an arse kicker?" she asked.

"It makes a person careful," Jinna said, and though her eyes remained serious, there was a softening to her expression that Mia found interesting. "Speaking of careful," she looked towards the back, but, as there was no sign of Gideon returning, she sat down opposite Mia, "has your fagin been giving you any more trouble?"

"No more'n usual," Mia said.

"The usual is bad enough," Jinna said, nodding towards the bruising on Mia's cheek. "It's not right, the way he treats his dodgers."

"Is it right for Liam's dad to be after you and your babe?" Mia countered, and immediately regretted it. Liam, the baby's father, had been killed in action not two months hence. "Sorry. I'm sorry for that."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," her friend assured her. "And it isn't right for Killian Del to be after my baby. Even if Liam and I had planned a future together, it wouldn't be right." One hand came to rest on the swell of her child. "But we didn't plan anything, obviously."

Mia, who'd yet to understand why any two sensible people would get up to what she knew they got up to, tried to look sympathetic. "Have you told his dad that? That you weren't promised?"